![]() ![]() "I saw, I understood, that in fact I had always been the greatest danger to my family. But not tonight." In "The Tornado Auction," a widowed farmer risks it all to return to his calling-rearing tornadoes on the Nebraskan plains-over the protests of his three grown daughters. "They mistake our merriment for nerves or weakness, or the hysterical looning of desire. ![]() Even within the framework of her ghost story, Russell remains attuned to the performances women mount in order to survive the threat of male violence: "People often mistake laughing girls for foolish creatures," cautions the narrator. ![]() In "The Prospectors," two society-savvy gold diggers must fight their way out of a haunted ski lodge without attracting the wrath of long-dead Civilian Conservation Corps men killed by an avalanche on the job. Russell takes an expansive view of history, excavating past horrors and imagining the contours of real terror on the horizon. Her third collection is no exception, and its subjects-forgotten pockets of violent American history, climate-related apocalypse, the trials of motherhood-feel fresh and urgent in her care. Since her debut more than a decade ago, Russell ( Sleep Donation, 2014, etc.) has exhibited a commitment to turning recognizable worlds on their heads in prose so rich that sentences almost burst at the seams. Russell's third collection beckons like a will-o'-the-wisp across the bog, with eight crisp stories that will leave longtime fans hungry for more. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |